The Novello Theatre. Photo: Rob Halliday

Leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light is supplying the lighting equipment to Desperately Seeking Susan, a new musical based on the eighties film and featuring the music of Blondie now previewing at the Novello Theatre in London.

Put together by Peter Michael Marino and directed by Angus Jackson, the show features designs by Tim Hatley with lighting by multiple Oliver Award-winner Hugh Vanstone, whose rig for Monty Python’s Spamalot in the West End is also being supplied by White Light.

To provide the wide range of lighting the show requires - everything from outdoors New York to inside loft apartments to atmospheric nightclubs - Vanstone is making use of some of the very latest automated lighting technology offered by White Light. His rig is based around a core of Vari-Lite VL500 wash units, both standard and ‘B’ pastel-color varieties their compact dimensions allowing them to be tightly massed along overhead lighting trusses; the production is using the 80V version with built-in dimming. Martin Mac700 Spotlights are used both overhead and as low-level sidelights. Vari-Lite VL3000Q Spots are then used to provide moving specials and effects within the complex, ever-shifting scenery.

Alongside the moving lights, Vanstone is using a wide range of conventional lighting, including the new fourteen-degree lenstube for ETC’s Source Four, as well as two Super Korrigan followspots from Robert Juliat, and a number of Thomas PixelLine 1044 LED battens. Smoke and haze are provided by Atmosphere and Viper NT machines. The entire rig is controlled from a Hog iPC lighting controller with Hog PC backup programmed by Stuart Porter; also working with Vanstone were associate lighting designer James Whiteside, production electrician Fraser Hall and the Novello Theatre’s lighting crew. The show is being production managed by Stephen Rebbeck.